Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/64

 tended to divide his property equally, ‘as if there went but a payer of cheers betwene them.’



RYE, EDWARD CALDWELL (1832–1885), entomologist, eldest son of Edward Rye, a London solicitor of Norfolk descent, was born at Golden Square on 10 April 1832. His sister, Miss M. S. Rye, was well known in connection with female pauper emigration; and his brother, Mr. Walter Rye, wrote voluminously on Norfolk antiquities. Originally intended to succeed to his father's business, Edward was educated at King's College School, but, tiring of routine work, he devoted his life to the study of natural history, and especially of entomology. He made valuable collections of the English coleoptera (to the list of which he added very many species). He was the author of a useful work on ‘British Beetles’ (1866), was co-editor of the ‘Entomologists' Monthly Magazine,’ and for several years was editor of the ‘Zoological Record.’ Later in life he became librarian of the Royal Geographical Society and was a constant contributor to the ‘Field,’ and for some years honorary secretary of the geographical section of the British Association. He died of smallpox on 7 Feb. 1885, in his fifty-third year.

He married the daughter of G. R. Waterhouse, F.R.S., of the British Museum, the writer on mammalia.



RYERSON, EGERTON (1803–1882), founder of the school system of Ontario, born at Charlotteville, Upper Canada, on 21 March 1803, was the youngest of the six sons of Colonel Joseph Ryerson (1761–1854), and his wife Mehetabel Stickney. The father, who was born at Paterson, New Jersey, suffered as a loyalist during the American war of independence. After the peace he settled near Fredericton, New Brunswick; thence he removed in 1799 to Port Ryerse, near Long Point, co. Norfolk, Upper Canada, and took an active part in the war of 1812–14 against the United States. He died in 1854 (see, The American Loyalists, ii. 257). Egerton was educated at the district grammar school, and then worked on his father's farm. In 1821 he joined the methodist church against the wishes of his father, who gave him the option of leaving his house or renouncing his methodist principles. Adopting the former alternative, Ryerson became an assistant teacher in the London district grammar school, Ontario. Two years later he returned home at his father's request, and again took to farming; he continued his studies, however, and at the age of twenty-one was admitted a minister of the methodist church, and assigned to the Niagara circuit. Thence he was transferred to the Yonge-street circuit, including York, as Toronto was then called. In 1826 he made his first appearance as an author by publishing a reply to archdeacon (afterwards bishop) Strachan's strictures on the dissenters [see, (1778–1867)]. In 1829 he started at York the ‘Christian Guardian,’ of which he was appointed editor. In 1833 he was sent as a delegate to the Wesleyan conference in England, and succeeded in bringing about a union between it and the methodist episcopal church in Canada.

In 1835 Ryerson again visited England to enlist support for the establishment of a methodist academy in Canada. The scheme resulted in the erection of Victoria College, Coburg, Ontario; and Ryerson was appointed first president of the college upon its incorporation in 1841. During this visit he wrote several letters to the ‘Times’ to counteract the support Hume and Roebuck were giving to [q. v.], whose reform principles Ryerson disliked. On the same occasion he supplied Mr. Gladstone, then under-secretary of state for war and the colonies, with materials for his reply to Hume's attack on the government with reference to Charles Duncombe's petition. During Lord Durham's mission to Canada [see ] Ryerson was frequently called upon to advise the government, and furnished some of the data for Durham's report. Similarly he supported Sir [q. v.] against the reform party, and published a defence of the governor.

In 1844 Ryerson was appointed superintendent of schools in Upper Canada, and he at once set to work to remodel the existing system of education. He travelled through the United States, England, and the continent of Europe to study educational methods, and on his return published an elaborate report of his results (Montreal, 1847). His ideas were